


The Woman I'd Like To Be

by flipflop_diva



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Peggy Carter, F/F, Natasha Feels, Peggy Carter Lives, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8403520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: Decades ago, Peggy Carter — SHIELD founder and agent extraordinaire — had gone missing and was presumed dead. Now, shortly after the fall of SHIELD, she has been found. Alive. Natasha never thought she'd have a chance to meet the woman she had secretly admired since joining SHIELD. But sometimes the things you never expect are the best things that could ever happen.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreshBrains](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/gifts).



> FreshBrains, I really loved your prompt for these two. I wish I could have written you a more historical AU as you wanted, but my historical writing leaves a bit to be desired, so I came up with this scenario instead. Set post-Winter Soldier but most definitely an AU. I hope you enjoy!

It was Fury who told her. If he had been anyone else, she would have wondered how he found her — she hadn’t told anyone where she was going, not even Clint — but he always had his ways, so she wasn’t exactly surprised when she found him outside her door one morning, sitting on the stoop and feeding a stray cat.

“Natalie,” he greeted her, as if it were perfectly normal for him to be there, and she didn’t ask how he knew that was the cover she had been going by either. “I think you’re going to want to come back to Washington for this.”

“I thought you were supposed to be in Europe?” she said in reply, not bothering to look at him and instead scanning the residential street of the small Ohio town she had ended up in, but there was nothing amiss. If someone had tracked her here besides Fury, they were doing a good job of staying hidden.

“I was. I found something.”

“There are other Avengers. I’m not ready to come back yet.”

“We found Peggy Carter.” 

•••

The excitement in the air almost exceeded the amount that had been there when Steve had been pulled from the ice, but this time, there were a lot less people who knew. The SHIELD founder — who had been missing for decades and presumed dead for just as many — had been discovered, locked away in a cryo chamber, similar to the one used to keep the Winter Soldier on ice.

It didn’t seem possible, but it was her. The same face who had once stared down at every SHIELD agent from the portrait in the main entryway to the Triskelion was now lying unconscious on a hospital bed, being monitored and attended to by an assortment of doctors, all of them there on Fury’s dime and under strict orders not to breathe a word to anyone.

Fury had put Natasha in charge of watching over her. She hadn’t asked why, just simply accepted it. It felt surreal that someone she had learned so much about when she first joined SHIELD, someone who she had at times strived to emulate, could be mere inches in front of her.

She had been around when Steve had been unfrozen. She had seen how the others back then had reacted, how they were in awe of him and gushed about everything he had ever done. She hadn’t quite understood the love for him — she’d known then that he had been a hero, but there were a lot of people she worked with every day who risked their lives, and to her, he was just another man. 

Now, though, she finally understood how all those people had felt before, and it unnerved her a bit that she cared so much about this woman she didn’t even know. The fall of SHIELD had shown her that she had gotten too attached — to her job, to her colleagues — without knowing it, and this was just proving that point even more.

She wasn’t supposed to have friends or a calling or a hero. Deep inside of her, where lessons of the past would never die, she was disappointed in herself. It was why she had tried to escape to a place no one would know her, where no one would bother her, but that hadn’t worked out very well.

And now she was here, staying by Peggy’s side, where she was supposed to be, for thirty-nine hours straight until the woman she was watching finally began to stir.

Natasha didn’t even have time to call out for the doctors, before they were all there, pushing her out of the way, hovering over Peggy, as the woman who was responsible for creating SHIELD and indirectly giving Natasha the life she now had finally opened her eyes.

•••

Fury had ordered Natasha to keep staying with Peggy while she regained her strength and processed this new world she had woken up in. He had others off tracking down who had done this to her in the first place and trying to make sure they weren’t going to come after her again.

Natasha didn’t tell him, or anyone, that she was bothered by the fact that she wasn’t allowed to go on that mission — he was taking most of the rest of the Avengers and part of the miniscule SHIELD team that still existed (that she had also just found out about) with him. Fury had told her that it was because he needed someone he trusted, and someone who was highly capable, to stay with Peggy in case something happened, and she did believe that was true, but she couldn’t help feeling a little like she was being sidelined, even though she knew she had been the one who had wanted to run away from this life after SHIELD had fallen, not the others.

“Are you okay, dear?” Peggy asked her the evening after the morning that everyone else had taken off. She had been showing Peggy how to use the internet, and she had taken to it much faster than Steve had just a couple years prior.

“I’m fine,” she lied.

“You don’t look fine.”

Natasha tried to bite back the wave of dismay that passed over her. She used to be so good at making sure no one ever knew how she felt, let alone a stranger who had just met her a few days before.

Peggy closed the lid of the laptop she had been using. Her eyes raked over Natasha, from the top of her head down to her combat boots, so piercing and intense that Natasha had the urge to slink out of the room. She didn’t, of course. She stayed where she was and kept her gaze on Peggy’s face.

Peggy’s eyes finally landed back on Natasha’s. “How did you become a SHIELD agent, Natasha?” 

“It’s a long story.” The same answer she always gave when people who didn’t know her asked. _It was a long story. She was recruited. She thought they could use her._

“We have a long time.” 

Natasha had to force herself to keep her eyes on Peggy’s.

“I could ask Nick for your file,” Peggy continued softly. “But I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

Natasha took a breath. Peggy was right. Fury would give her anything she wanted. She was going to find out eventually.

“I’m Russian,” she finally said. She had meant it to be a starting line, but instantly Peggy’s face changed, softening a little, something akin to understanding flashing in her eyes, and Natasha knew she knew what she meant.

“I knew some Red Room girls.” Peggy’s voice was quieter than before. “They were very good at what they did.”

Natasha wasn’t sure if that was an accusation, but she felt uneasy. “I don’t … I’m not …” The words were stuck in her throat. The thought that Peggy Carter — the woman who was a hero to so many people — could think of her as only the assassin the Red Room trained her to be almost made her sick. 

“I don’t do that anymore,” she finally managed.

“I know.” Now Peggy smiled. “I didn’t think Nick would let you stay with me if he thought you did.”

Natasha nodded at that. On the bed, Peggy’s hand moved, and a second later it was on top of Natasha’s. She couldn’t help it; she looked down at the pale fingers covering her own, looking at how they almost fit together, both of them strangers in a foreign land, albeit in completely different ways.

“Leaving that world behind to do the right thing is far braver than anyone could ever know,” Peggy said softly, and she squeezed Natasha’s hand.

Natasha dropped her head, letting her hair almost completely cover her face. She didn’t say anything in response. She felt silly, and childish, but the words had sparked something inside her, and she wasn’t about to let Peggy Carter see that she wanted to cry.

•••

They moved into Avengers Tower a month later. Peggy grew tired of the makeshift SHIELD hospital after a couple weeks, and she couldn’t very well go get an apartment in downtown New York. That wouldn’t be safe.

But Tony had wanted them all to move in to the tower for a while anyway, and it did make sense. Natasha hadn’t been sure about it — moving in was basically recommitting herself to the Avengers — but there was another part of her that wanted to show Peggy — to prove to Peggy even though Peggy never doubted her — that she was worthy of the way Peggy seemed to see her.

So they moved in, Natasha and Peggy, and not long after, Steve and Bruce and sometimes Clint. 

Natasha and Peggy spent a lot of time together when the Avengers weren’t out on missions. They worked out together, they trained together, and at nights, Natasha let Peggy tell her stories of what her life, and SHIELD, used to be like.

Natasha knew she was getting closer to Peggy than she should, maybe even closer than she was actually comfortable with, but there was something about her that made Natasha just want to be around her, even if it was just sitting in silence next to her on the sofa.

“We should go somewhere sometime,” Peggy said to her one night. It had been about two months since they had all moved in, but except for missions, neither Natasha nor Peggy ever really got out much. Natasha knew Peggy must be feeling as restless as she was.

“Okay,” Natasha said. 

“Just the two of us.”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Where did you want to go?”

Peggy smiled. “To dinner? The movies? What do couples do these days?”

Natasha blinked at her. She was never at a loss for words, but right now, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Peggy couldn’t be saying what she thought she was saying. That didn’t make any sense. But what else could she mean?

“Like … a date?” Natasha tried to clarify, but to her horror, she felt herself stumbling over her words. Peggy only smiled softly at her in response.

“Yes, darling,” she said. “Like a date.”

A few seconds later, when Natasha still hadn’t figured out how to answer or why her mouth wasn’t working, Peggy leaned over and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. Peggy’s slender fingers pushed Natasha’s hair behind her ear. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Peggy whispered into her ear, and it was all Natasha could do to nod, a smile making its way across her face.

It was definitely a yes.


End file.
